Daphne, an autumn pastoral

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

"Her Excellency,—will she have the politeness," said Daphne slowly, reading from a tiny Italian-English phrase-book, "the politeness to"—She stopped helpless. Old Giacomo gazed at her with questioning eyes. The girl turned the pages swiftly and chose another phrase.

"I go," she announced, "I go to make a walk."

Light flashed into Giacomo's face.

"Si, si, Signorina; yes, yes," he assented with voice and shoulders and a flourish of the spoon he was polishing. "Capisco; I understand."

Daphne consulted her dictionary.

"Down there," she said gravely, pointing toward the top of the great hill on whose side the villa stood.

"Certainly," answered Giacomo with a bow, too much pleased by understanding when there was no reason for it to be captious in regard to the girl's speech. "The Signorina non ha paura, not 'fraid?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," was the answer in English. The Italian version of it was a shaking of the head. Then both dictionary and phrase-book were consulted.

"To return," she stated finally, "to return to eat at six hours." Then she looked expectantly about.

"Assunta?" she said inquiringly, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, for other means of expression had failed.

"Capisco, capisco," shouted Giacomo in his excitement, trailing on the marble floor the chamois skin with which he had been polishing the silver, and speaking in what seemed to his listener one word of a thousand syllables.

"The-Signorina-goes-to-walk-upon-the-hills-above-the-villa-because- it-is-a-most-beautiful-day.-She-returns-to-dine-at-six-and-wishes- Assunta-to-have-dinner-prepared.-Perhaps-the-Signorina-would- tell-what-she-would-like-for-her-dinner?-A-roast-chicken,-yes?- A-salad,-yes?"

Daphne looked dubiously at him, though he had stated the case with entire accuracy, and had suggested for her solitary meal what she most liked. There was a slight pucker in her white forehead, and she vouchsafed no answer to what she did not understand.

"Addio, addio," she said earnestly.

"A rivederla!" answered Giacomo, with a courtly sweep of the chamois skin.

The girl climbed steadily up the moist, steep path leading to the deep shadow of a group of ilex trees on the hill. At her side a stream of water trickled past drooping maidenhair fern and over immemorial moss. Here and there it fell in little cascades, making a sleepy murmur in the warm air of afternoon.

Halfway up the hill Daphne paused and looked back. Below the yellow walls of the Villa Accolanti, standing in a wide garden with encompassing poplars and cypresses, sketched great grassy slopes and gray-green olive orchards. The water from the stream, gathered in a stone basin at the foot of the hill, flowed in a marble conduit through the open hall. As she looked she was aware of two old brown faces anxiously gazing after her. Giacomo and Assunta were chattering eagerly in the doorway, the black of his butler's dress and the white of his protecting apron making his wife's purple calico skirt and red shoulder shawl look more gay....